Our friend Alex Spoto of Roppongi's Ace fame turned me on to Maxim Ludwig & The Santa Fe Seven a few months ago.

Twenty-one year old Brooklyn-born/current Los Angelian Maxim Ludwig got his start banging pots and pans in his godmother's kitchen, and later as a ten year-old harmonica blower playing in blues cover bands in German beer tents. From then on, he embraced the philosophy that everyone do what they do best in a particular song and not have a particular permanent job.

A few years ago he bought a cheep guitar at a police auction and learned to play it from a "skinny, toothless, heroin addicted" handyman. The handyman walked up to Maxim one day and said, “Kid, I’m gonna teach you how to play the blues.” The handyman handed maxim a guitar slide (read: toilet paper tube) and they practiced the rest of the day. Maxim never saw him again and never had another guitar lesson.

Later, he further embraced his second passion: language/poetry/thought. Then as now, he was more "concerned with how words are held in the shape of the mouth than the notes."

This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.